A Fifth Dimension:Guidelines and policies
A Fifth Dimension maintains a number of guidelines and policies that have been suggested for the wiki by the community or those assisting in it's creation (i.e. administrators and apprentice narrators}, to help maintain order in the wiki. Please read these policies and guidelines to familiarize yourself with all of the rules and suggested practices. Any questions, suggestions, comments or complaints should be posted on the talk page. The policy changes page maintains a list of all new suggestions and clarifications regarding established policies. Add that page to your to be kept informed. How guidelines and policies are different Policies for this wiki tend to follow common sense and you may find them similar to the policies of many other wikis. Policies are applied here as firm, established rules. Guidelines, on the other hand, are merely suggestions that have been given to help create articles and pages of the wiki that are consistent in nature and feel. These are not considered mandatory—unlike policies—but are meant to provide assistance in learning how things are "put together" in our wiki. Policies The main thing to always keep in mind is that A Fifth Dimension is an encylcopedia. Despite its open source nature, the content should be the sort of content that one could expect to find in any other encyclopedia and just as accurate. General guidelines These can perhaps best be demonstrated by examining what A Fifth Dimension is not: ; A Fifth Dimension is not IRC * It is not a chat room, although we do have a forum for community interaction. * It is not MySpace. While building a community is encouraged, all discussion in any page in this project should be on-topic, regarding The Twilight Zone or the wiki. ; A Fifth Dimension is not a free web host * It is not an image gallery or audio/video collection. We do host media in the wiki, but that media should be justified as necessary for article enhancement and should meet established image and other media use policies. * It is not a place for storage of personal content, text or otherwise. All content should be intended for community use. ; A Fifth Dimension is not Project Gutenberg * It is not a repository for scripts or screenplays. These are fine as sources and references, but primary sources should not be excerpted here in portion or in whole. ; A Fifth Dimension is not a soapbox * It is not an opinion column or a forum for debate and discussion. That said, some discussion and debate is acceptable on article's s, but should be limited to the writing and editing of the article only. ; A Fifth Dimension is not eBay * It is not a commercial enterprise, but a non-profit one. Promotional information not fitting within AFD guidelines and policies, advertisements, links to open auctions or sales, and spam should not be included. ; A Fifth Dimension is not Fun Trivia * It is not a trivia guide or quiz, although most trivia can find a justified place in the articles. See also: User page guidelines for more details on acceptable content on user pages. Specific policies * - Determinations of what fits in The Twilight Zone canon. * - Legal information concerning the use of copyrighted material. * - Conditions for the deletion of a page. * - Suggestions for communicating politely and effectively. * - Rules for uploading images. * - List of different perspectives used in writing articles. * - Policy regarding the protection of articles. * - Conditions for retoring deleted content. * - Boundaries in setting up your own user page. * - Policy requiring the accurate presentation of facts. Guidelines General guidelines * - Advice for editors and writers. * - Guidelines for how to edit and style articles. * - Suggestions for keeping the wiki wikified. * - Suggestions for contributing to the wiki. * - Suggestions for avoiding conflict and finding solutions. * - Suggestions for how to deal with incomplete articles. * - Hints on handling information that may require spoiler alerts. Content guidelines * - Suggestions for being specific. * - Suggestions for avoiding self-references or loops. * - Suggestions for avoiding spoilers. * - Advice for validating sources. * - Suggestions for using proper references. * - Suggestions for using AFD as a source. * - Suggestions for introducing articles. * - Guidelines for using external links properly. Style guidelines * - Guidelines on using the edit summary field. * - Suggestions for setting up specific types of articles. * - Guidelines for using excerpts. * - Guidelines on the use and creation of categories. * - Guidelines for avoiding article title conflicts. * - Guidelines for how to format your articles. * - Guidelines for highlighting. * - Guidelines for how to style your articles. * - Guidelines on how to use abbreviations. * - Guidelines for how to style specific articles. * - Guidelines for how to handle quotes. * - Guidelines for how to name new articles. Maintenance guidelines * - Guidelines for finding and dealing with errors. * - Guidelines for dealing with copyright infringement. * - Guidelines on dealng with pages with no outgoing links. * - Suggestions for repairing and removing dead links. * - Advice on identifying and fixing article stubs. * - Guidelines on dealng with pages with no incoming links. * - Suggestions on handling incomplete and inaccurate articles. * Use disambiguation when appropriate. ( ) * Use redirects when appropriate. ( ) * Use stubs when appropriate. ( ) * Use templates when appropriate. ( ) Enforcement Enforcement, by and large, can be carried out by the general community. Assuming most The Twilight Zone fans to be considerate, fair and reasonable, most situations can be resolved by simply and politely making another user aware of a mistake. When this is not sufficient, the administrators may intervene to enforce wiki policy. In extreme cases, an administrator may consider banning a repeat offender or any unreasonably disruptive user. See also * - Page for proposing new policies or adjusting existing ones. Category:A Fifth Dimension's Guidelines and Policies